A COLLECTION OF TOP BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC NEWS

India has now become the second most preferred alternative after China in textiles and emerged as a “one-stop shop” for retailers and apparel companies looking for a reliable destination for their sourcing solutions, a CII study has said. After dismantling of quotas in textiles from this calendar year, South Asia holds 14 per cent and 9 per cent share in US and European markets respectively and is expected to be major gainer of safeguards on China with India soon leading the race, the study on textiles by CII-KSA Technopak said. The study pointed out the advantages of India over China namely easy availability of raw material, spinning, weaving and garmenting capabilities.

The confidence of executives in the US and China in their economy plummeted over the past three months, while Indian CEOs are upbeat about the country’s economy, says a McKinsey survey. As per the McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives, US CEOs registered a confidence level of 44 on current economic conditions versus those six months ago. “This is the lowest since we began measuring it 18 months ago and the lowest of any group of executives,” McKinsey said. Executives from India remained more confident about their national economy than are CEOs anywhere else in the world, it said.

Question: How do you get more viewers and, more importantly, higher ad revenues if you’re a niche television channel? 
Answer: localise, localise, localise. That appears to be the latest mantra for a slew of broadcasters from AXN and BBC World to National Geographic and Travel & Living as they scramble for a bigger slice of India’s estimated Rs 4,500 crore TV ad pie. “There is certainly a larger ad outlay on Indian content than on foreign content,” says Sundar Raman of Mindshare. Take BBC World. The British broadcaster, which aired Bollywood Inc in July as part of its India Business Report series produced by Mumbai-based UTV, kicked off an India Week from October 15 featuring live reports, debates and interviews in its regular programmes like Hard talk, Click Online, Fasttrack, and Talking Point.

OIndian IT bigwigs are finally rubbing shoulders with global tech majors. TCS, Infosys and Wipro have just marched into the UK’s top 10 fastest growing IT services companies club. The three-offshoring majors have also broached the top 50 in terms of actual size. Analysts like Ovum predicting they will break into the UK top 10 IT service providers league in five years. Riding on the mega multi-million dollar deals, Indian IT majors are seeing growth of over 30%. By 2010, at least one Indian name will feature in the UK top 10 ranking of IT services players, confirm Ovum analysts in their latest market report.

Improving consumer sentiment across India’s urban and rural markets have fired up growth rates in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) market. Senior industry officials said there’s a sharp reversal in downtrading, and profit margins have improved substantially with consumers seeking value-added and aspirational products. For August ’05, the total FMCG market grew by a strong 6.2% in value terms. Reflecting the consumer confidence, the FMCG index has moved up by 37% over the past six months, even marginally outperforming the BSE sensex. Most companies are expected to post strong growth in sales with some analysts expecting giants like HLL to post double digit sales growth.

India Inc's second quarter performance seems to indicate a robust economy. Many companies, led by technology and two-wheeler majors, have improved their numbers during the quarter ended September ’05 (Q2). This is shown in a study on corporate results of 354 companies. These companies have recorded a decent 32% growth in net profits to Rs 6,974 crore, while their aggregate sales improved 20% to Rs 51,449 crore. The list includes companies across sectors such as IT, auto, banking, power, cement and finance. Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto, IDBI, Satyam, Tata Power, HDFC Bank, ACC, Reliance Energy, Ranbaxy and Gujarat Ambuja Cement are among the major companies which have announced results, so far.